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Tommy Grisafi is the main host and content creator for Ag Bull Media.
The Ag Bull Podcast showcases agriculture's top talents in a long-form video format. The Ag Bull Trading Podcast is a deeper discussion of trading with analysts and key players in agriculture nationwide.
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AG Bull
Wiesemeyer's Perspectives | Cows, Cuts, And Chaos in Washington!
Markets open after a CME outage as we track the odds of a December rate cut, soybean sales to China without a signed deal, and the shape of USDA’s bridge aid into 2026. We lay out the stakes on tariffs at the Supreme Court, biofuel rules, E15 delays, and Farm Bill 2.0 politics while cattle find a surprising bounce.
• Fed cut odds and leadership signals
• China soybean buys, enforcement, and price gaps
• USDA aid timing, scope, and funding risks
• Cotton and sorghum outlook with margin stress
• Deere guidance and machinery bottom watch
• India and Canada trade snags
• Food security reporting pause and SNAP recertification talk
• Supreme Court tariff case scenarios
• RFS, RINs, 45Z delays, and year-round E15
• Farm Bill 2.0 vote math and timelines
• Cattle border reopening, packer capacity, and price recovery
• Why Congress must codify to reduce court whiplash
All that for $25 a month. We’re up watching the markets 24 hours a day, so you don’t have to.
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Thank you, Tommy G
Happy Friday, everyone. Tom Gersafi, Eggbow Media, Eggbull Trading. You're listening to the Eggbow Podcast. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have a lot of news, and it was a strange day. Some interesting stuff happened. I'll add a little color to it, but the CME group shut down for eight hours overnight. And you know what? When you are the border trade, the CME, the Comex, and the NyMex, and you are where price is discovered, it's a little chaos. But speaking of chaos, we got someone to calm us down. Mr. Jim Weesmeyer, he is hopefully didn't eat too much turkey and he has some energy left. Let's give this man a little introduction and we'll bring him on the show.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we've got uh a Baker's dozen of uh topics to try to clear up a lot of confusion on a number of topics. So we're gonna get right to it, okay?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, sir. Well, the Fed cut rates, Mr. Jim.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, 80% odds that's what the market is saying. So if we don't get a cut December the 10th, which is the Federal Open Market Committee, F O M C, uh the equities market is gonna go down a lot. So the equities is close are closely following the uh interest rate issue. But I think the Fed would have come out with disqualifying statements recently had the market been so far off. So, yes, I expect an interest rate cut of only 25 basis points. And sometime in December, we should get President Trump's recommendation for the new Fed chairman. The inside track is saying the market's saying Kevin Hassett, that's the national economic consult, you know, director. But I've learned on appointments, Tommy, they can change very fast. But we're gonna get the announcement sometime in the month of December.
SPEAKER_00:So Jay Powell's out, he will hit the unemployment number, but I'll tell you, don't worry. I'm sure he'll make a small fortune in consulting as a Wall Street firm picks him up, right?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. He can stay as long as May next year because he's a board governor. So it'll be curious whether or not he stays. I think most Fed chair people would probably leave after a new person comes in, but we'll see.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it couldn't be a week if we didn't talk about these two US China trade deal and soybeans.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we had another soybean sale, you know, daily sale from USDA this morning. I think we're over 2 million tons now. You'll recall that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant had been saying around Thanksgiving, and we're right, around Thanksgiving, that we'll get a signed agreement between President Trump and Xi Jinping, China's leader. We didn't get that yet. Why is a signed agreement so important, Tommy? That'll show China confirming some of these tonnage levels of soybeans that keep being mentioned. 12 million tons of purchases, not for delivery yet this year, but purchases during November and December. As I said, we're a little over 2 million tons now, and 25 million tons annually for 26, 27, and 28. An agreement would also tell us if China has an escape clause that says they will purchase U.S. commodities if price competitive. Well, we know that we're over a dollar more expensive than Brazilian soybeans, so that's their escape valve if they put it in writing. And also why an agreement I think is needed is enforcement language. If China doesn't fulfill, what are the enforcement mechanisms that U.S. has is being is telling China that they could face? All that is embodied in there, but we'll see whether or not we get a signed agreement.
SPEAKER_00:U.S. Farmer Aid Package promised delayed and now unclear.
SPEAKER_01:USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said earlier this week that it will come next week, okay, and it will be delivered in early January. Now that gives me a little signal there. Number one, we'll we'll need to know what concept did they use on this coming farmer aid package. Is it going to be limited to a trade mitigation program, especially China? Or will it be more general? But if it's just China or trade, the total funding level may surprise people on how low it will go. I've seen estimates on on Reuters as high as$15 billion. And if it's just trade-oriented, it could be under$10 billion. So she's going to have to fill in the uh blanks on that one. And as far as farmers getting the aid, by no means is it a bailout. It'll be far below the needs in the farming our farming community.
SPEAKER_00:That's about$40 billion, by the way. Yeah, that's what I was just going to ask you.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's it's this is seen as a partial bridge into 2026. And it'll be curious too, whenever where uh Brooke Rollins announces this, whether or not she has some lawmakers behind her. If she has GT Thompson, the House AG Committee Chairman, and John Bozeman, the Senate AG Committee Chairman, with her, maybe they'll talk about the next step on farmer aid, which would be a possible congressional farmer aid package, similar to the one we had December 21st in 2024. That totaled$10 billion, by the way. So, bottom line, quoting Brooke Rollins, it's coming next week. We'll have to see the funding level. She's already saying payments are going to be made in early January, which tells me it won't be too complex of a program to operate. And then we're going to have to see if Congress is going to deliver on a on a more general farmer aid package late this year.
SPEAKER_00:And that brings my question. Our sugar beet growers, the all the things we talk about that grow in California that were affected, whether it be you talk about them all the time, my cotton. Have you seen the cotton futures? Woof. That's no good. You know, who's going to help these people?
SPEAKER_01:Cotton. Really, cotton is. I think of all the commodities that I talk about in my speeches, and go, and I go down to the south a lot, cotton is hurting the most. When China was a market for U.S. cotton, you had cotton prices in the 90 cent area, Tommy. Now we're in what the 60, 60 cents.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, most 60s. That's the futures price. I imagine typically the cash price is lower.
SPEAKER_01:It it it really, really hurts. And so the outlook is just it's somber. So I'm gonna have to take a concerted look at that cotton industry to see the elements of positives in the years ahead. Sorghum is another commodity that really went down relative to uh China. Now we've had a small purchase recently, and I think the the China will purchase more sorghum or Milo because they like it in their liquor there. So maybe sorghum has an updraft uh uh you know coming. And soybeans, we've seen a price uh appreciation, but the vast majority of the soybean traders and analysts think that China won't fulfill those tonnage terms that we talked about, but we'll see.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and that leads us into our next uh great segue. If farmers aren't making money, these people are probably struggling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, John Deere came out Wednesday with their out uh outlook, and even though they topped their fourth quarter forecast, it was their it was their look ahead to 2026, Tommy, uh that got people nervous. Look at the left-hand side on the far left, large ag equipment down 15 to 20 percent. That's what's hurting John Deere right now because farmers, in a word, they can't afford them, so they're not purchasing them. Now, Deere in their earnings call, and I listened to to every every word of it, and I I wrote a story about it on uh Wednesday afternoon, yeah. And they're they're they're saying that 2026 will be the bottom. Let's hope, let's hope, and importantly, they didn't have farmer aid built into their forecast. Oh yeah, so I think that's an important from an investing perspective because we know farmers are going to get some additional aid for sure from the administration and possibly more more than likely from Congress. So that could mean you know that we we could see the bottom. But what's the top side? Because uh it looks like the ag sector is getting used to these uh big increases in in aid, Tommy. But at least in the fall of next year, these higher reference prices for farmers in the farm programs are gonna kick in. But that's why we need the bridge aid between now and 2026 plantings and before those higher farm program payments kick in in the fall of 2026. If we if if we continue to have relatively low prices, that's your bottom line.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and folks, if you missed that story, it's gonna be at the top of the AgBO website here in the next few minutes. Uh we'll get that posted. Agbo Intel, click on Weismeyer's Perspectives for all his latest content. As fast as Jim releases that, you can get it. Of course, if you'd like to sign up for Jim's personal newsletter, his email is scrolling across the bottom. Weismeyer at gmail.com. Back to the show, my friend. Yes. All right. So we went through uh Deer, and now let's talk about this. Is interesting. Any day now, trade deal with India and Canada.
SPEAKER_01:We've heard that for about a year from both from various administrative from President Trump to Treasury Secretary Besson to US Trade Representative Jamison Greer, and we just don't get it. Now, eventually, I think we will get a phased-in trade deal, but I also mentioned Canada in our headline here because talk with Canada. They're having the same problem with India that you get so close, but then it comes up with certain snags in the case of dairy exports to India, and in the case of the US, we also include digital aid. India just drags their feet, but Trump really wants them as a buffer to uh China. So I think eventually we'll get one, but it's been a long wait, Tommy. Mm-hmm. Several months ago on food security report, USDA pulled the annual report. And you know, Democratic Farm State Lawmakers just railed, saying, Oh, this is not the time to cut out that report. So, but at the time I remember talking to USDA officials, and they said, look, don't worry, we're gonna come up with a new approach for the food security report. Well, that's been several months ago. And at the time they told me they were negotiating with the data firm, and they couldn't put out the information until they had a signed contract. I still don't have an update on that. They say it's coming, but we really need to know uh the the parameters of the food food security because that helps in food aid, not uh in the in the US. And and I think it it it is it is needed information. USDA keeps telling me it's coming.
SPEAKER_00:Speaking of USDA, snap.
SPEAKER_01:Are we gonna get the reform? Brooke Rollins, USDA secretary, keeps saying that she needs more information from the states. She's got it from the red states in most particular as to far as the information they need to really assess overpayments. I mean, some some uh recipients, not all, but some recipients of SNAP get it get paid three to four to five times. Now, that shouldn't happen. So in a program that supplies mostly needed food for up to 42 million people, you're gonna have a lot of problems in there. That's just fact. And she says there's more fraud and abuse than people realize. And she said recently she's gonna have everyone recertify in in order to check the qualifications. Well, again, that that got the SNAP proponents just all up in the air because I don't know whether they know internally that there's a lot of uh you know misuse of that program. Or they're saying that it would put a lot of uh you know uh busy work, if you will, on those uh offices. But when Brooks says something like that, I think she's got the um command and control behind her to follow through on that. Bottom line, there is a lot of fraud and abuse in the food stamp program, and they need data in order to prove it and to change it. Now, this also ties into another subject we're gonna have later on. So we'll we'll we'll we'll bring Snap back up relative to the Farm Bill 2.0 discussion.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and let me ask you a question. People probably think I'm joking, but do you think they'll go to cemeteries and get those people re-registered who are getting it who already passed away, or how would one go about that?
SPEAKER_01:That's part of the abuse that there's more than a few dead people who continue to get uh those uh yeah electronic uh you know uh electronic payments. And the stamp program, I I think more than any other program has the most airs in it. Conversely, crop insurance has one of the best, lowest amount of problems. And I think that's that's because of the very close relationship the government has in working with the private crop insurance industry. It's one of the best programs that I've ever seen in my 50-year career.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Let's take a little break for station identification. You're listening to the Eggbowl podcast. My name's Tommy Grossaffee, the one and only Jim Wiesmeyer's on. Jim Wiesmeyer, we take his articles, we post them uh as fast as they come out. And the trust me, I don't know when the man sleeps, but additional shows are now premium content. If you'd like premium content, www.agbull.com, putting out videos, text alerts, all types of breaking news. We're up watching the markets 24 hours a day, so you don't have to. All that for$25 a month. Back to the show, Mr. Weissmeyer.
SPEAKER_01:And I wanted to say, Tommy, Tuesday this coming week, I'm going to be in Auburn, Nebraska for Ruth Gertis's crop insurance company. Oh, yeah, sponsored by Farmers Uh Mutual, I believe. And so if you're in that area, and if you're a client of uh my longtime friend in the crop insurance industry, Ruth Gertis, come to her event.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, absolutely. Ruth and uh her husband, Myron, uh friends, and she's a legend in the crop insurance industry.
SPEAKER_01:She is very much so. I she really taught me and mentored me as much as she could in my fledgling days. Now that goes back a ways, huh?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but you know, we need age and wisdom to uh guide people of uh all ages through this uh turbulent time. We need that steady hand to just say, you know what, we got this, here's what we're gonna do, and keep moving forward.
SPEAKER_01:Speaking of Ruth is doing it to her firm, she she had her girls as she calls them. She's a believer in in mentoring, and she has and the people coming up in her organization will carry on uh you know the baton because Ruth taught them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I'll be uh on the uh Iowa, Illinois border speaking for uh one of the great cornseed companies here in the Midwest. I'll have that data out to uh clients and friends. But uh Wiffles Hybrids just Wiffle.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah, Illinois too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Illinois, and they're expanding all over the country. But Wiffles Hybrids just a just they do one thing and they kick ass doing it, and they make cornseed and absolute privilege to outlook there. Yeah, very good. And several of the uh employees are friends and clients, so absolute privilege to get out there and give people good news. I actually have some good news for the people, so and uh I bet you they watch this show. So let's see here. This one, I always have to ask you, what are we fighting for in this one?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, Affordable Care Act. Let's make it affordable, but let's make it prudent. And it's neither of the two right now. The the issue is that, and this was the number one issue of why we had a 43-day government shutdown, because the Democrats tried to use the shutdown in order to get the Republicans and President Trump to agree to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act or Obamacare credits that came about during the COVID years, Tommy. Well, they end at the end of December this year. And if they're not extended in one way or the other, there's going to be a pretty good increase, not a pretty good, pretty bad increase in for the around 20 million people I think get ACA and Obama care. Now, where we're at right now is that uh President Trump again said uh today, I think he said, you know, people are quoting him saying that he's working a deal with the Democrats to extend uh the enhanced credits for two years. He said, no, no, uh, I don't want that. I want to I want to work, maybe we may have a one-year, a partial increase, but he wants reform. And so do the Republicans in Congress. They'll put a means test on it and they'll put other reforms. And if they can come up with the with the middle of the road, I think there's your solution to this very thorny issue that was, again, the number one issue in the government shutdown. So we're gonna see. I think within the next few weeks we should have some type of an agreement announced.
SPEAKER_00:Supreme Court tariff case, a ruling that could reshape U.S. trade policy.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, it would, big time, because either sometime in December or early in 2026, the Supreme Court, SCOTUS as we call it, Supreme Court of the United States, will issue a ruling on the constitutionality of President Trump's use of tariffs. Now, depending on who you ask, and I've said over the last few weeks, I've talked to too many trade lawyers, and I'm tired of it. They're split. Most of them think that Trump will lose this case, not all. And the administration is still confident that the Supreme Court uh will rule in their favor, but let's assume they do not. What's going to happen? There's big question marks on that, because you have to read the Supreme Court rulings. If they rule against Trump, they could say from this date forward, that means the all the tariff billions of dollars in tariffs heretofore, we just have 32 billion in the month of October alone, Tommy, for tariffs. They can stay as is, or they could say you have to repay those. And that opens up, oh my goodness, there'd be a lot of complexity. On the other hand, if he if Trump loses the case, where does his trade policy stand? Well, the administration has been hard at work looking at their other tools that they have, and they have many, but they'll be more cumbersome. I think this is part of the reason why you've had some recent uh scaling back of uh tariffs. Uh we saw, what was it, last week with Brazil that that he withdrew those 40% additional tariffs on Brazilian uh beef, uh hamburger, if you will, and coffee, and uh not all coffee, but not instant coffee, but coffee. And so I think he's trying to get back as much as he can to his initial concept, Tommy, which was reciprocal. We're gonna treat you as you treat us. And Americans understood that and they vastly supported that. It's when they got into higher tariffs beyond reciprocity, is I think where it got into the complexity of whether or not he should have gone that far. So, bottom line on this one a ruling's coming. Let's look at the ruling first to look at the consequences to to see whether or not they they they say Trump is within his rights, or if they don't, uh what tools the White House will use to further uh further continue their tariffs on on all these countries, and what the ruling says regarding the tariffs that have come in.
SPEAKER_00:And this young man will have a lot to do with it, Howard uh Lutnik. Secretary of Commerce, absolutely gotta have a plan A, a plan B right now, huh?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and he's he's part of the plan B along with Scott Besant and Jamison Greer, U.S. trade representative. Yeah, they've they've been hard at hard hard at work. There's Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, one of the more I think he's the top star in the Trump cabinet now. He's the go-to man for Trump under a host of issues, whether it's dealing with Argentina in that controversial bond swap that, by the way, has been reduced. Remember, it used to be what was it, 20 billion or 200 billion? Well, whatever it was, it was a lot. They've scaled that back some. And he's the front man for uh for PR on uh Fox News, uh, Fox Business, CNBC, and X, and uh and mornings with Maria as well. So when he talks, you better listen because he's in the know.
SPEAKER_00:The he is such a calm speaker. Did you hear that little slap peaky, that little verbal uh back and forth? He was meeting with someone and they were talking about inflation. He said, you know, if you move to a red state, inflation will be less. And he said it just smiling. And I like his style.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna have a series of graphics to prove that, by the way, next week, Tommy. So that sounds good.
SPEAKER_00:Get ready for them. All right. So last thing we did was Supreme Court. How about this one?
SPEAKER_01:Well, Congress and the clock. You recall that when we had the lifting of the shutdown, the 43-day shutdown, they had a what we call a CR continuing resolution until January 30th through January 30th. So that means that Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have until then to complete funding for the nine agencies and departments that have not yet been funded. USDA was funded, so that's a that's a big deal for USDA. But we have nine different agencies that still have to be funded, and Congress just needs to do their work. Now, part of the hangup is let's connect dots here, that Affordable Care Act issue that the Democrats want to see by the middle of December. They've been promised a vote in the Senate by Majority Leader John Thune, and they're gonna see how that goes, and that's why the negotiations that we talked about earlier are so important. There's John Thune, yes. And he has been very successful in getting these complex issues uh resolved one way or the other when it didn't look like he could to many other people. So I just cannot imagine that Congress, even this visceral Congress, will do another government shutdown. So, but we still have until January 30th to reach agreements. I think there'll be a series of uh minibuses, what we call minibuses, two or three agencies, funding bills that Congress will vote on in order to whittle down the number of agencies that could be part of uh uh any additional government shutdown. But I think lessons were learned on this last one. So I'm a little more optimistic than most people that they'll they'll uh they'll get it done.
SPEAKER_00:We're gonna need your perspective on this because there's so much can so much going on here.
SPEAKER_01:Make your head swim. Um EPA Lee Zeldon has as is in a deregulatory bent, and which is a good one, but in the case of uh the renewable fuel standard program, here's the best way I can explain it when electric vehicles were on the rise, okay, you had our crude oil industry working almost for the first time in a major way with the biofuel companies to come up with better biofuels policy because they had both uh a lot to gain versus the electric vehicles, which they both didn't like, okay. Crude oil for obvious reasons, and the renewable fuel standard program is based on on you know gasoline consumed. That's miles driven. You don't you don't use gas with EVs. But now that the rose is off, the bloom is off of the EVs, they're still being sold, but not to the degree of growth that we saw previously under the Biden administration that basically mandated the use of EVs, the crude oil industry has changed. And now they're saying that they think that renewable fuel standard program needs reform. Well, that's got EPA kind of shuffling the deck and different groups going in to talk to the Office of Management and Budget and both sides, biofuels and also the you know crude oil companies, refiners, relative to what's going to be the allocation factor relative to the uh SRE, the waivers that a number of refiners got. That's the complexity of this. And then we can bring up RINs. What's going to be the value of RINs? How is EPA consistently going to treat uh foreign feedstock uh for a number of biofuel programs, including the 45Z program, sustainable aviation fuel, all that is on the front burner right now? What's the timeline for this? We thought it could be sometime in December, but this could carry over into early 2026. Now, the biofuel industry does not want that, and I don't blame them. And you saw that we also said E-15. There's a couple on E-15. When will we ever get year-round E-15 through Congress? Because you want to go through Congress, that codifies it, so it can't be changed. If not, then they could have an executive order that we know that if a different administration comes in, they can just change that. But E-15 is also an issue relative to California. You recall earlier this year, California had a major change. They were the last state to bless E-15, let alone year-round. They they you just couldn't use any E-15 in California. And they're a big user of uh you know gasoline, expensive gasoline. So E-15 would really help California consumers of gasoline because it runs what around 15% or more cheaper than than the than the price of uh uh regular gasoline. Now, the issue with California now is I I was on Agri-Talk a couple of months ago when they had a biofuel industry spokesman who was very optimistic on the timeline that California would implement E-15. And and my sources at the time was saying, no, look at the timeline for California. It could go well into 2026, if not longer. And now, this past week, the U.S. biofuel industry has admitted that, and they're saying now they're they're saying, hey, they're they're pressing California to accelerate their timeline. Uh it's it's it's their state agency called Core Carb, C A R B. Good luck, because they don't have a history of accelerating anything in that agency. But that's where we're at on E 15. So you can see relative to the biofuel. And even 45Z, I should point out, that's the sustainable aviation fuel. We still don't have the rules and regulations from the Treasury Department and IRS because it's a tax incentive. Treasury keeps saying, look, we are bogged down getting the final rules and regulations to implement the one big beautiful bill, the OBBB Act, relative to the tax cuts. So that tells me we may not know those rules on 45Z until sometime in 2026. So later rather than sooner, under a host of issues relative to the uh biofuel programs, Tommy. Hope that cleared it up.
SPEAKER_00:Unbelievable. That you cleared it up, all right, youngster. All right.
SPEAKER_01:Farm bill uncertainty, that's 2.0. Will we get a skinny? Some people call it skinny farm bill, other people call it a farm bill 2.0. That's G.T. Thompson's label for it. I think maybe it could pass the committees, the House Ag uh, House and Senate AG Committees. But when it comes to the floor, especially the House, because you're going to have 40 to 50 House Republicans who will vote no on a farm bill just for all host of reasons. So that means they need Democrats in order to pass Farm Bill 2.0. And those are the provisions, Tommy, that were not included in that budget bill last year, in which we got a much needed big increase in reference prices, and we got pretty good improvements in the crop insurance program. So in a big way that was handled relative that we have already, but the 2.2.0 are other provisions, and they were recently extended through September next year. So that takes some of the pressure off Congress having to do something right away. But I think the key issue is how are the Democrats going to view Farm Bill 2.0? Are they do they want it to go? Or do they think that most of them do right now that they're going to win back the House after 2026 elections? And if that's the case, they may not want a Farm Bill 2.0, thinking they'll have more control over the process if and when they are in control after the 2026 election. So take your cues from the Democrats on this one. Will they come to the party and vote for the skinny farm bill? Are they gonna or do they want an election year issue thinking, thinking they think that they'll win the House in 2026 and be more in control in 2027?
SPEAKER_00:The story that just doesn't go away. And last week you and I had breaking news on this. By the way, I took a short clip from when you and I broke that Tyson news and I posted on different social medias. I had a TikTok of you and I talking about the Tyson closing the plant. It went viral on TikTok. Yeah, I forgot to tell you that. Wow, over 125,000 views on TikTok of you and I breaking that news down. And this is the story that just won't go away.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, and and I will give a shout out to Secretary Brooke Rollins. She did an interview with the podcast. Maybe you'll remember the name of the podcast. I don't right now.
SPEAKER_00:I'll look it up for you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but it's a cattle, it was very well, I mean, 40-minute interview. I mean, and I translated it in an item that's on my information. I spent a lot of time going through that excellent interview, and she showed she was very adept at these sensitive cattle industry issues. And those two cattlemen really pressed her. I give them high marks for it. And that's the beauty to me of the quote press right now. It's not the mainstream press that's that's asking the most important questions anymore, it's these podcast people ourselves included in that podcast.
SPEAKER_00:I have the name of that podcast, Mr. Weesmeyer. Okay. It's Lonesome Lands. And the podcast, if you go on YouTube, it's called State of the Cattle Industry with Secretary Brooke Rollins, Lonesome Report. And it was a first class interview. And I gotta tell you, whether Joe Vaklavic had her on, other podcasters had on. The beauty of doing what you and I are doing today, we'd love to have her on, Secretary. If you're out there and you just have a little extra time, we'd love to have you on. And it it'd be easy for us to contact her with uh your connections and a few people I know.
SPEAKER_01:And I will. They they've been wanting me to interview her and Stephen Vaden, the deputy secretary. I've already got the okay, so I think it's a matter. I I'm gonna let's just wait until after they come out with that fine uh that aid package next week. But maybe by the end, sometime in December, if it fits her schedule, because she's got a busy one, we're gonna have her call in to this podcast that'd be great.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and if she wants to call now, 1-855-737 Farm, or if you want to call me, that's her number. Real quick, what's great and to finish up is there's I was listening to you on Chip Flory, and I could tell you were being pushed because there's commercials and there's breaks and there's a clock, and you get gonged out right when you're getting ready to say something. And that's how real TV works. You know, I did the TV down in Nashville, and but the beauty of this is whether we go short or go long, our only commercial breaks are ourselves. This show is paid for and sponsored by Mr. Weissmeyer and myself, so it's just a privilege to media's change. That's what I'm trying to say, Jim. Media's changed tremendously.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, and and I can tell from the emails I get from people who who follow you, Tommy, and my longtime uh people who have followed my long career once they find out uh where we're at now, and so we're back. We've got a growing community out there, and they give us questions. I've always said in my whole career, my ground truth is that farmers and ranchers and ag industry people asking me questions in search of comments and potential answers. And that's what we that's what we try to give them.
SPEAKER_00:You know what we'll do, Jim? Because you're I just got us thinking in Brother Joe's here. Brother Joe, we're gonna post that podcast, State of the Cattle Industry Secretary, Brooke Rollins, Lonesome Report. We'll we'll post that on the AgBull website, and I'll make a thumbnail for that with their title. And uh folks go to www.agbull.com and we will have that uh replay of that podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and if you want my digest of it, which was a long one, I put it in my files. I I think that you ran it because it was a special report.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, special reports. We we run them, we get burning off our fingertips with all your special reports. Well, we're getting to the end of the show, and uh the last thing we covered was did we we did skinny farm build now? Oh, I popped it up, but then I that's the last one.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, border realt, that's the screw worm. And again, this this podcast that she did, lonesome yeah, I got right here Lonesome Lands. Lonesome land. Okay, she really went through this. Now, here's the one she and and Vaden has also said recently, Stephen Vaden, the deputy secretary, a handsome listener. The solution on this must be based on science. Now, they're getting close to reopening that border. There was some conjecture uh in the trade that this could be reopened in a phased-in basis as early as sometime in December. I keep on hearing it's more of a January one. But her comments on this issue show the sensitivity of that issue. She wants to make sure that things are in place. But I keep saying, Tommy, President Trump told her a few weeks ago he wants that border opened because he knows that there's more than a few cattle that'll eventually make their way to the United States, hopefully in a positive way, not to risk the US, you know, cattle industry. And you know, it's interesting. You had the prices that we've seen, what over you know, this week with cattle?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you want to see that?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I want to see that. Look at that. Oh, it's so good to see an upsign in in cattle and hogs. I mean, we've got hogs on the run now again, too. But look at that. We have been seeing a bloodbath, and again, in that podcast interview, she had to address that price downturn, and she acknowledged that that that the initial decision that Trump talked about relative to quadrupling, was it, uh, our imports of cattle from uh uh Argentina, now the Brazilian move uh relative to beef. But Barons had a story yesterday, I think, uh that caught my eye, that it said the equities for uh certain packing companies are on the rise ever since the discussion has turned to uh more cattle in the United States, not from uh U.S. cattle, but the Argentine move, but more importantly, the potential reopening of the border. That just means that they'll have more cattle to kill. Okay, and so that that that that that maybe we've seen the lows. Let's hope so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, this sure didn't help. When we announced this and broke this on our show live last week, Tyson, Lexington, Nebraska closing. We opened limit down and only traded limit down on Monday, opened Tuesday and quickly recovered, closed higher Tuesday. We closed higher Wednesday. We took off Thanksgiving holiday, feeder cattle limit bid for part of the day today on Friday going home. Hell of a recovery for the cattle market.
SPEAKER_01:That tells me the analysts are figuring it out that that, yeah, that initially psychologically, this was a negative. We knew it when when when when when you saw that, Tommy. But then the more you looked into it, you had the surrounding of uh feedlots, and you had some alternatives that tempered uh some of the downdraft that that we saw. So let's hope that it it let's hope it will continue. And uh Brooke Rollins also handled the question. I think it was Tyson who said their CEO who said that you're gonna have ten dollar hamburgers. And she said the internal the internal analysis at USDA does not say you know, ten dollar hamburger.
SPEAKER_00:It wasn't Tyson, I got to correct you on that. It was the guy who sells beef. It was the CEO of like Omaha Beef where I said you are correct. You are say it again. Hold on, I want to get a recording of this. Say it again. I'm correcting Jim Weesmeyer. Write it down because that's my job, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I know you do it for me. Well, anyone needs an editor, let me tell you. Let me oh, that made my day.
SPEAKER_00:I could I could let you know.
SPEAKER_01:It was Omaha beef. Yeah, now you're giving it.
SPEAKER_00:I'm paying attention to you. Last but not least, and I love you, brother. Let's take your home.
SPEAKER_01:This one is so confusing that I haven't been able to figure out if if you're I I say in my speeches now, I begin with, if you're not confused about what's going on in Washington, we haven't done our job. Okay, because we're all confused. And this is a classic example. Look at all the court challenges that anything Trump puts out, it's challenged in court. Anything EPA puts out, it's challenged in court. It's the it's the uh lawyer employment program, okay? So it it creates a ping-pong confusion because as they go throughout the court system, frequently ending up at the Supreme Court, where we finally get a uh a final determination, right or wrong, on some of these sensitive issues. What it tells me, Tommy, is uh you recall last year we had the Chevron you know declaration from the Supreme Court that ruling that basically said, Congress, you have to do your job. We can't continue to doing it for you. And this is my lesson. Congress has to codify things. Once you put it in writing clearly and leaving not so much discretion to whether it's USDA, Treasury Department, energy, etc., then you have you tell the government which way you want to go in implementing legislation. So let's hope Congress uh does their job now and and writes legislation with implementation you know factored in. So we don't have all these challenges coming in. And that's my bottom line on that one, Tommy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, that's a wrap, sir. Take us home with something optimistic and we'll get out of here.
SPEAKER_01:Aid. Now I know farmers more than a few say they want trade aid, not farmer aid, but you have to get that bridge. And we're gonna have several bridges because it's needed because of input cost, because of still developing Trump trade policy. So depending on how many billions of dollars of aid it is, it won't nearly be enough, but it's better than nothing. And then listen to see if Congress kicks in again, which I think that they will, because the cash flow problems are that bad. So we're gonna build a pretty solid bridge into 2026 before it's all done, Tommy.
SPEAKER_00:That sounds good. Mr. Jim Wiesmeyer, Wiesmeyer's Perspectives. Of course, if you'd ever like to have Jim speak, go over to AgSpeakers Network. You can have Mr. Wiesmeyer speak at your next event. You know what? I think I'm even on that website too. I'll see you later, Mr. Wiesmeyer.
